Fla. company supplied organs in rabies case

The emergency entrance at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago is seen. A Maryland man died from a transplanted, rabies-infected kidney from a donor who wasnít known to have the disease. Federal officials said Friday, March 15, 2013, the rare death prompted treatment of three others who got organs from the same donor, one in a transplant operation at Northwestern. The Chicago hospital confirmed the Illinois transplant was performed there and that its doctors are administering the rabies treatment to that recipient. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast, File)

RALEIGH, N.C. — An official at an organ donation service in Florida says it was the supplier of transplanted organs from a man who later was found to have died of rabies.

The man’s organs were transplanted into four people, one of whom died. The mother of his son on Monday identified the man as William Edward Small, who was in the Air Force.

Kathy Giery of LifeQuest Organ Recovery Services in Gainesville, Fla., said the hospital found he died from food poisoning from a toxin sometimes found in large saltwater fish. She says the organs were not tested for rabies because no one suspected it at the time.

The Defense Department has said he died of severe stomach and intestinal inflammation. The Florida Department of Health believed it was encephalitis.